


Cross The Threshold Home

by jellyfishline



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Space AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-04
Updated: 2014-10-04
Packaged: 2018-02-19 22:05:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2404532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jellyfishline/pseuds/jellyfishline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Sam is a pilot, Dean is a mechanic, the Impala is a space ship, and the author attempts to write something happy for once.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cross The Threshold Home

Dean’s never been any good at flying. Dad said he didn’t have the feel for it, that he was born with two feet firmly on the ground and ten slippery fingers. Bobby says the same thing, but different words. He says, just because you’re crap at something, doesn’t mean you’re crap at everything.

Dean doesn’t know if he believes that yet. But he does know that hates being in the cold metal cockpit of a ship, the confined space and the ground falling out from under his feet. They look so graceful from the window of Bobby’s junkyard, strips of starlight soring in the black, but it’s so different to be behind the wheel. He’d much rather stay here and take care of their hearts, leave the fancy footwork to the born pilots, like Sam.

He’s elbow-deep in the guts of this seriously nice machine, (vintage Firebird with racing stripes, the latest of his little side-projects he works on when Bobby doesn’t have a job for him doing station maintenance or taking apart some dude’s rusted-out junker,) when he hears the warning bell that says there’s someone in the landing bay. He’s wiping the sweat off his brow and punching the ‘shut the fuck up’ button before the bell has time to make more than a single reedy trumpet. Dean’s already standing up, shoving his hands in the pockets of his coveralls.

He’s got a good feeling about this.

By the time he gets down to the airlock, it’s already open. Sam is there, all too-long limbs and too-long hair, being crushed in one of Bobby’s patented rib-snapping hugs. Sam pats Bobby’s shoulder and smiles wide when Dean comes into view.

Dean opens his arms to say, _well, here I am_ , and Sam takes the opportunity to launch at him. Sam’s been so happy the past couple of months. It’s great. Even if Dean still spends more nights up working than sleeping, or curling tight over the guilt in his gut about Dad (the guilt Bobby and Sam have both, separately, more than once, told him he shouldn’t feel) none of that matters. None of it matters if Sam is fed and safe and smiling all the damn time.

But now Sam isn’t smiling. He’s looking at Dean seriously and Dean tries not to falter.

“So.” Dean clears his throat. “How’d it go?”

“Honestly? It uh, it didn’t pan out like we thought.”

Dean’s not disappointed. It was a longshot anyway.

They’ll just have to try again.

(And again)

“But then,” Sam says, and his lips are twitching and Dean’s surprised, this isn’t their usual script. “Then on the way back, I got a contact from a dealer out past seventh. And he had her.”

“You sure he was legit?” Dean says, before he can catch that Sam said _had._

And yeah, okay Dean has never been so happy to see that knowing smirk on Sam’s face.

“I’m gonna say yeah,” Bobby says. “But you better see for yourself.”

Dean doesn’t wait for telling twice. Just goes straight to the window and presses his nose against the glass like Christmas morning.

And there she is.

Not quite good as new. Paint chipped and one of the thrusters is off kilter and the front shield’s been patched and Dean’s already cataloguing the damages and vowing vengeance on the son of a bitch who couldn’t be bothered to give her the basic maintenance she deserves. But none of that matters.

What matters is that she’s there. For the first time since Dad was taken in by the cops and all their stuff got impounded and sold and traded for scrap, she’s there. She’s battered and broken, but she’s still breathing.

“C’mon.” Sam jostles Dean’s shoulder. “I gotta show you something.”

What more could there be than this?

Dean lets Sam drag him out into the airlock. Dean’s not even wearing his boots and he probably shouldn’t be out here without them but like Hell is anything stopping him from a chance to see her up close. 

“Damn,” he whispers, stopping to watch the light glint off her beautiful black bow. Sam tugs him on.

They’re standing at the door now. Sam puts his hand on the handle, gives Dean a look like, you ready?

And no, Dean’s not ready. He’s never gonna be ready for this kinda reunion.

His hand joins Sam’s on the handle, and together they push it open and together they cross the threshold home.

It’s nothing like it was back then. All shadows and creeping corners and storage boxes and a musty moldering smell. Dean can’t help the clench in his throat even though he knows he should be glad just to see her again. But he’d never realized she wouldn’t be the same as he left her, all those years ago.

But Sam tugs him on again, steers him deeper into the ship. Dean doesn’t know what could possibly be so important, what could possibly matter so much in the face of all this crap piled in the way.

Sam leads him to a corner by the cockpit. Stops Dean with a hand on his shoulder. “Look.”

Dean squints, following the line of Sam’s pale pointing hand into the dark. And.

Sees.

Their initials. Still carved into the panel, still perfect and present.

Dean touches the wall carefully, because to be honest, he’s still not sure he hasn’t cracked and isn’t hallucinating the whole thing.

No matter how many times she changed hands, she kept their memory inside.

Dean doesn’t like flying. But that doesn’t mean his home isn’t here, right here in the ships and stars and the black.


End file.
